Snake Bite
by Shards of Light
Summary: Inu Yasha has been bitten by a snake demon and appears to be changing into a human! How is this possible?
1. Chapter 1

Okay, this is my first fanfic, so review and tell me what you think about it. No flames, please. Flamers will have my dragons sicced on them!

_Italics_ in this story are for emphasis; **_Italics Bold_** represent thinking.

Disclaimer: I don't own Inu-Yasha.

Chapter 1

"Why are we fighting this demon if it doesn't have any Shikon shards?"

"We are fighting it because the village is paying us to, and I have already accepted the payment."

"Miroku, you are the most unscrup- Ow! The damn demon bit me!" Inu Yasha shook his arm in an attempt to get the demon off. "Let go!"

Sango chose this moment to throw her boomerang, neatly severing the snake demon's head. This killed the demon, of course, although its fangs remained embedded in Inu Yasha's arm, a fact Kagome noticed at once.

"Inu Yasha, these fangs are two inches into your arm! I'll get them out for you."

"Kagome, I am perfectly able to get them out on my- OW!" Kagome had ignored his protests and yanked out the fangs. She stood frowning at the fangs resting in her hand, completely oblivious to Inu Yasha's shocked stare.

"These feel. . ._weird_," Kagome commented.

"Of _course_ they feel weird!" Inu Yasha shouted. "They're drenched in my blood!"

Kagome blushed, staring at the noticeably red fangs. "I didn't mean like that," she mumbled. "You think we should keep them?"

"Why?" Inu Yasha asked reasonably.

Kagome shrugged. "I can't detect any demonic aura around them. Miroku?"

Miroku grabbed her hand, staring at the fangs. "I can't detect any demonic aura either," he puzzled.

Sang came to stand between Miroku and Kagome. "Isn't that odd? The aura should stay unless purified."

Miroku nodded, his hand straying to Sango's backside. Sango responded to his usual ploy in her usual way: blushing furiously, slapping his face, and moving farther away. Miroku just stared at her retreating form, absently fingering the hand-shaped red mark on his face.

Kagome shook her head and slipped the fangs into her pocket. "He never learns."

That night, Kagome was studying the fangs. They gleamed dully in the light of the full moon, no longer red; she had washed off the blood earlier. They _still _felt weird, proving that it was not just Inu Yasha's blood that made them feel so. Although she had told the others she felt no demonic aura from the fangs, she _did_ feel a strange aura from them. An aura that was somehow intertwined with Inu Yasha's. "Hmm. . . ," she murmered, turning over the fangs in her hand.

"What's wrong, Kagome?" Shippo asked, startling her out of her reverie. After staring blankly at the young fox demon for a few minutes, she seemed to collect herself and smiled. "It's nothing, Shippo." **_I just have a bad feeling about something. . ._** , she thought staring back in the direction of the clearing where they had slain the snake demon.

At the clearing, the body of the snake demon glistened in the moonlight. The decapitated head was connected to the body in a few places by a fine mesh of scales that was slowly growing. A cold laugh sounded through the clearing. "Thank you, Inu Yassssha," a voice hissed. One of the snake's eyes moved a fraction, and the cold laugh was heard again.

Back at the campsite, Inu Yasha's dog ears twitched in recognition of the distant sound. His sleep, however, remained undisturbed, and when the sun rose five hours later, its rays shone down on Inu Yasha's silver hair.

End Chapter One

Well, that was the first chapter! Review please! Oh, and I am aware that Inu Yasha's hair is white, and I know silver is darker than white. So, why is his hair getting darker? You'll just have to wait and see!


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you to everyone who reviewed! Here's the second chapter. Sorry it took so long to get up. I had it all on paper and then the characters started getting all stubborn when I tried to type it! Blame them, not me! Various cast members roll their eyes. HEY! I saw that! Anyway, no flames, please. Flamers will have my dragons sicced on them!

_Italics _are for emphasis; **_Italics Bold_** are thoughts.

Disclaimer: The copyright gods have declared that I do not own Inu Yasha. Sigh.

Chapter 2

Something was wrong. Kagome had noticed it as soon as she had woken up that morning. She hadn't had the courage to point it out at once; it might have been a mere trick of the light. However, once they reached the edge of the forest, there was no doubt about it.

Something was different about Inu Yasha's hair. Kagome had just opened her mouth to remark on it, when Inu Yasha's kimono snagged on a thornbush.

"Damn," he muttered, tugging his arm ineffectually.

"Inu Yasha, let me get that!" Kagome called, walking toward the hanyou. Said hanyou however, continued tugging his arm relentlessly until the thorns came free. He winced as his arm slammed into a nearby tree trunk.

"I told you to let me get it!" Kagome scolded. "Now you probably have a bunch of thorns in your arm. Let me see." She reached for Inu Yasha's arm, but he jerked it out of her reach.

"It's nothing," he snarled at her. Kagome just stared at him with her arms crossed and her foot tapping; she sent him a look that clearly said, "Yeah, right."

"Let me see. _Now_," Kagome said, her tone icy.

"It's _fine_," he insisted, keeping his arm behind his back.

"Inu Yasha, **NOW**," Kagome growled, her eyes flashing and her tone dangerous.

Inu Yasha, cowed, thrust his arm under her nose, muttering something to the effect of, "Damn pushy girls."

Kagome lightly slapped his hand in rebuke and carefully rolled up the sleeve of his kimono to reveal two puncture wounds. "I told you; you should have waited for me to get it," Kagome chided, retrieving a bottle of antiseptic cream from her bulging backpack.

They aren't from the thorns," Inu Yasha grumbled, looking away from her ministration to his arm.

"Huh?" Kagome looked up from Inu Yasha's arm. "But then that means. . . ," she trailed off, her voice quavering a little, looking to Inu Yasha for reassurance. However, when he grimly nodded, still not looking at her, she finished her sentence with a look of defeat. "These are from the snake."

Kagome stowed the cream back in her backpack. "But how is that possible?" she wondered, absently twirling her finger through her hair. "I mean you heal really fast. A mere snake bite should have been gone by now. Maybe there was an anticoagulant in the snake's spit or something," she speculated, a slight frown on her face.

Crickets chirped as the group tried desperately to figure out what the hell "anticoagulant" meant.

"But I don't think they were hollow," Kagome continued, oblivious to everyone's mental confusion. At this point she took the fangs out of her pocket to examine them again. She promptly screamed, dropping the fangs and startling everyone out of the impromptu reverie.

Coincidently, the fangs were hollow; they also happened to be oozing blood, although there wasn't any blood on Kagome's hand or in her pocket. Inu Yasha's nose flared. "It's my blood," he announced.

The blood evaporated after a minute, and Kagome, blushing, tucked them back into her pocket. "Sorry, I thought I washed all the blood off earlier," she apologized.

"Obviously not," Miroku replied wryly. "I wonder why Inu Yasha's arm hasn't healed yet," he mused, staring at the sky. Maybe he thought cloud gazing would divine the answers, for he stared upward for a very long time.

When he was done staring at the cloud formations, and their resemblance to pretty girls, he stared piercingly at Kagome. "If Inu Yasha's arm has not mended within the next day, we should purify the fangs," he declared.

"Why?" Sango reasoned. "There isn't any demonic aura attached to them."

Kagome looked decidedly uncomfortable at this remark, luckily no one noticed. "Sango's right; they don't," she pronounced. **_There is that weird aura, though. . ._** In the ensuing silence, Kagome remembered what had been bothering her that morning.

"I-inu Yasha," Kagome began, stuttering.

"What?" Inu Yasha replied in his usual manner; that is to say, rudely.

"Y-y-your hair," she continued, still stuttering.

"Well? What's wrong with my hair?" He was still being rude.

"Isn't it, um, _darker_ than usual?" she asked, the stutter gone and fury beginning to take its place.

"No! What's wrong with you! It's always been like this!" he insisted. He turned away, muttering under his breath.

Unfortunately for him, Kagome could discern enough of his grumbling to tell that he was talking about her, and also that what he was saying could not be termed flattering by _any_ stretch of the imagination.

It's really easy to predict what happened next.

Yes. "SIT, BOY!"

If Inu Yasha hadn't been fighting with Shippo, he might have heard the icy laugh originating from the clearing. The group was still significantly close to said clearing, despite the previous day's travel. Additionally, Inu Yasha and Shippo spent so much time arguing and fighting that it was sunset before they settled down. They set up camp only approximately a quarter mile from their previous night's stop, and the first star gleamed on Inu Yasha's storm grey hair.

"Ah, but one more day and I ssssshall be completely healed," the Voice hissed, satisfied. "I really mussssst endeavour to meet you in perssssson, Inu Yasssshaaaaa. . ." the Voice trailed off with a wicked laugh, imagining the meeting. After all, it had been a long time indeed since it had had dog demon.

Well, that was Chapter two! Review, please! Reviews make me update faster!

I'm really really really really really _really_ sorry this took so long to put up. Blame stubborn cast! Also, I had another fic floating through my head while I was typing this, and the main character of that fic kept bugging me to write _her_ story and to hell with Inu Yasha! Sigh. Well, I wrote the first chapter-ish of her story, it's a YGO one by the way, just to shut her up so I could finish this chapter. I might post it later.

Oh, and I'm thinking of adding another character in a near future chapter! Only problem is, I can't decide if I should bring in Naraku, Kikyo, Koga, Sesshomaru, or just keep the cast the way it is. Tell me what you think in your review! Reviewers will get cookies! And if you know what "anticoagulant" means, I'll give you a Sesshomaru plushie! That I don't own either!


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Three days. Three days to heal. Three days worrying that scavengers would finish me off before I could recover. Three days before I could move without risking my head falling off. Three days cursing myself for letting my attention wander from the demon slayer. Three days hating myself for being so distracted by the taste of his blood.

Three. Bloody. Days. On the other hand, the usual period of healing, self-loathing, etc., was _seven _days, so I couldn't complain much.

Seven. Damn. Days. I shuddered just thinking about it.

Although the mystery of my rapid recovery rate itched at my curiosity, I ignored it, focusing instead on tasting the air, searching for the elusive scent of dog demon. After a moment, I found it, surprisingly still strong. Usually the scent was so faint that I had difficulty picking it up, but the air fairly pulsed with this scent. I smiled, as much as I was able, and followed it.

----

I immediately realized that I had followed the wrong scent the minute I entered the clearing. This close, the slight differences became more apparent. This one's scent was . . . purer, for lack of a better word, than Inu Yasha's. He smelled faintly of dragon, while Inu Yasha reeked of human and cat. Also, this one had an underlying scent of power.

It wasn't the scent of power that made me retreat. Neither was it the aura of poison and death that surrounded him. It was the coldness of his eyes, the knowledge that he would kill me for no other reason than he was bored. My hasty retreat was born of the fact that I am in essence a scavenger, and this one was strong. There was a reason why I waited a week between biting and eating.

-----

I caught the right scent an hour later, dog demon laced with human with a dash of cat. Another hour, and I had caught up to them. I tasted the air one last time, making sure, and paused. This scent wasn't that of a_ dog demon_ laced with human; it was that of a _human_ laced with dog demon. Thoroughly confused, I trailed them more closely, listening carefully.

-----

"I don't know what your problem is, Inu Yasha," a young girl declared, her voice icy.

"What do you mean, you don't know what my problem is? You can't go home now! Not while I'm like this!" Inu Yasha yelled in reply. His voice sounded a little different than it had three days ago, but I ignored that in favor of listening to the girl's reply.

"I've been here for three weeks already! I'm going to fail all my finals if I don't go to school for a while. Besides, we agreed to ask Kaede about this, remember?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"And you're not coming with me! I need a break from you too!"

The argument escalated for a few minutes, but came to an abrupt halt when the young woman said, "Sit." I heard a crash and muffled cursing. It was then I noticed the scent intertwined with the young woman's, mine. That girl was carrying my fangs. Laughing coldly, I waited for them to stop.

I hissed in annoyance when I discovered that they were resting in a village, but my mood improved when I discovered her scent a few minutes later, leading away from the village. Alone. I followed her swiftly, hoping to retrieve my fangs before their aura dissipated.

I caught up with her in time to see her fall into a well in a clearing not far from the village. I chuckled. _**Thisss isss almossst too easssy. . .**_ As if I had jinxed myself, it went straight to hell from there.

A blue light flooded the clearing, a strange aura accompanying it. Pain shot through my head, and I gasped at the intensity of it, barely restraining myself from screaming. As the world faded to black, I had just enough strength to drag myself under cover.

As my fleeting consciousness became ever more distant, I added another curse to the extensive list: for not realizing she was a miko.

-----

Shards of Light: It's short. Deal with it.

Kagome: You'll have to excuse her. She only caught one Inu Yasha episode in the past two weeks and she has to wake up at five tomorrow for a thirteen hour car ride.

Inu Yasha: Hey, you forgot to say you don't own us! 'looking at SoL's eyes' Your eyes weren't red before. . . Hey, you're not the authoress!

'All Yu-Gi-Oh cast members run away screaming, knowing what's coming'

Shards of Light: 'evil grin' Technically, I am. I'm just her darker side.

'All remaining cast members look very confused. YGO cast explains Yamis, offering Yami Bakura and Yami Marik as examples. Cast members turn very white and all attempt to squeeze into a random bomb shelter. Yami Shards of Light completely ignores them, reading off a paper.'

YsoL: Okay, first of all, cookies to all who reviewed. Sesshomaru plushie to Overactive Mind, who knew what anticoagulant meant. HPHG4EVAH gets a picture drawn by Shippo of a Sesshomaru plushie for attempting to figure out what anticoagulant meant. Anyone who guesses why the snake only took three days instead of a week to heal or why it blacked out at the end of the chapter gets a Human Inu Yasha plushie. Brownies to anyone who reviews. To anyone who flames, 'Snorts in disgust upon reading that the flamers will have the rabid plot bunnies sicced on them, then gives a _very_ evil grin' I will kill you very slowly, resurrect you, kill you very painfully, resurrect you, break all the bones in your body, rip out your heart, and make you like it. On the other hand, constructive criticism is appreciated.

'Resumes reading' I won't be able to update until at least Saturday, because I'm going skiing in West Virginia, with no computer access. I'll probably have written the next chapter during the aforementioned thirteen hour car drive, so I'll probably update Sunday. 'Mutters under breath something to the effect of "unless you end up in the hospital because you ran into a tree"' Hey! I heard that! I can go down the blue squares now! 'is being weirded out by how the note is responding to her' Well, of course it's responding to you! It's an authoress note, endowed with supreme authoress power. . . 'rolls eyes' Whatever. Anyway, review, please!


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter 4**_

Math continued to evade her.

Hardly surprising, since it was one in the morning, she was running on three hours of sleep from the night before, and, since eight, she had only managed to complete one problem.

"Okay, so if x is equal to four, then y is equal to eight, and when we put these in and solve, we get zero is equal to thirty-two. On to problem two."

. . .Make that half a problem.

"Wait a second, . . . let me check the book . . . "

Sirens sound in distance. Warning: infamous Higurashi temper imminent . . .

"Here we are, problem one. The answer is . . . five?"

She stared at the book in confusion for a minute.

"But . . . I thought the answer was supposed to be a point . . . five is the slope . . . We were supposed to find **_m_**?!" A loud crash followed on the heels of that statement as the math book met the wall. "Why in **_hell_** were we supposed to find **_m_**!?" she screamed, completely forgetting the time.

"Kagome? Is something wrong?" Her mother stood in the doorway, yawning, and attempting to rub the sleep out of her eyes.

"Nothing, Mom. Go back to sleep. I was just about to."

Her mother mumbled incoherently, shuffling out of the room. Kagome sighed, looked mournfully at the unfinished mountain of homework remaining, and quickly got ready for bed. She set her alarm for four-thirty, reconsidered, now setting it for five o'clock. Crawling wearily between the covers, she was asleep in minutes. The clock display showed one sixteen.

And asleep, she dreamed.

—

_Rain. The forest smelled faintly of rain, and more strongly of blood. She was running, running so quickly her breath caught in her throat, so far that a stitch began pulsing in her side. Running towards the smell of blood. It felt like she was crying; indeed, her sobs were not entirely due to lack of breath, but the wind stole her tears._

_She burst into the clearing, managing to stop just shy of the spreading pool of blood . . . blood flowing from under a familiar red haori. She sank to her knees beside the still form, staring in shock. A familiar hissing sound came from behind her, but she paid it no heed, looking listlessly in front of her._

"_Thisss iz what will happen . . . he iz easssy prey now that his demon hasss been drained completely . . . Even without my fangsss . . . "_

_She turned her head just enough to glance dully at the surprisingly human looking thing behind her. Although it was somewhat snake-like . . . "What do you want?" she asked, without any inflection whatsoever. She just couldn't muster the energy to care, not with . . ._

_The being shook his head in disbelief. "What do you think I want? What do you have of mine? Think hard and think quickly, child, for I am not very patient." His eyes flashed warningly. "I will give you sssissteen hours. If I do not have them by then, I will be forced to take them."_

_His eyes grew huge in her vision until she could see nothing but their glowing red. They receded a bit, and she could see the face they belonged to, no longer even vaguely human. The giant snake from a week ago, made larger by her fear, stared down at her as she would a juicy steak she looked forward to devouring._

_She saw but a brief flash of movement before he struck, and she had only time to scream piercingly before he was upon her._

––

She woke like that, screaming, writhing on the bed, trying desperately to escape something her sleep-fogged mind could not realize was but a dream.

"Kagome. Kagome. Ssh. It's all right; it's just a dream."

Kagome woke up just enough to gaze blearily at him. She blinked a few times before her sleep-dazed mind disregarded the irrationality of his presence, before her gaze slid inevitably towards the clock. It was a moment before the glowing numbers imprinted themselves upon her brain: eight forty-two.

Her sleep haze disappeared. "I'm late! I should've been up hours ago! I'll never finish my homework now," she moaned. About to continue, a gentle hand pressed against her forehead interrupted her stream of self recriminations and brought her further to her senses, enough to bring her attention back to the inexplicable presence of this man in her room.

She was confused but a moment, recognition lighting her eyes as more of the fog of sleep vanished. "Hojo, what are you doing here?" Confusion was still evident in her voice.

The familiar clueless grin lit his face. 'I was just stopping by on my way to school. I had hoped you would be well enough to go with me, but it seems not. Perhaps you should stay home."

Kagome thought for a minute, conflicted. While it was true that she was not yet even close to completing the homework, she had not been to school for weeks. Of a sudden, however, the fatigue hit, and focus became a luxury that Kagome could not afford.

Her voice was slurred, but her words were distinguishable as, "Maybe I should." Her eyes were closed and her conscious departed before her head hit the pillow.

"Sleep well, Higurashi-san," he whispered, closing her bedroom door quietly behind him. Kagome was so far gone that she did not hear even that small noise.

He had been gone for but a moment when the alarm light that had been glowing steadily abruptly winked out. The clock display flickered, settling an instant later, although some of the light lines died. It now read two thirteen . . .

-----

A pair of red eyes shone in the darkness surrounding Higurashi shrine. Two rows of even white teeth, save two spaces on the upper layer, glinted in the moonlight, suggestive of a cold, feral grin, although there was no laughter. The eyes were the color of old blood, with utter darkness split down the center of the iris, a slit cat-like pupil, detracting in no way from the uncaring evil and indifference in the gaze.

They were only there for a minute and soon gone, leaving but a whisper on the wind: _In time, Higurashi, in time . . ._ . He had been waiting a long time; a while more would not bother him unduly.

--------

When Kagome woke she remembered nothing of this second dream or if in fact it was a dream at all. Any thoughts of her first dream were repressed for the moment as she caught her first glimpse of her clock.

"Ten?!"

_**End.**_

Of the chapter, anyway. I'm very sorry I haven't updated since January . . . of last year . . . Um. It's all his fault! _points at Yami Bakura_ I was writing a fanfic about him and I really liked it and I had three whole pages before I went to bed for the night . . . only to wake up in the morning with the computer off. Did I mention that I stupidly forgot to save? My sister snuck out to play on the computer, my mom caught her at it and shut down the computer, both of them deny getting out of WordPerfect . . . and if there's a backup, I can't find it. Grr.

Anyway, I also realized I had no idea where I was going with this story and the plot bunnies were pushing me to write this YuGiOh! fic . . . and I was on meds for three months . . .I probably should have renewed the prescription; I was happy more often . . . Well, I'm sorry my problems kept y'all in suspense for a year . . . if anyone's still reading this . . . Cookies to all who review!

Bye!


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